Majuro

     A quick hour flight from Kwajalein to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands and suddenly, you are in the Marshall Islands. I just spent  3 1/2 days there and a lot of memories of living in Micronesia (Saipan) and living on an outer island in the Marshall Islands (Kili) came flooding back.
     A few days in Majuro gave me plenty of time to ponder what’s next for me. Three+ days may not seem excessive, but the NTA hotspots didn’t reach my room, so I was alone with my thoughts for most of the time with no internet access. As a JOMO’s JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out), this wasn’t a problem for me, but I did miss the internet.
     I wandered around the downtown area, and in and out of what are now primarily Chinese owned stores. The produce section reminded me of the selections available when we first moved to Saipan in 1989 - cabbage and potatoes were staples, with a touch of mold thrown in for free. I don’t recall much outside produce available at all in Majuro in the 80’s. And on Kili? Fruit and vegetables consisted of canned USDA pears, that I had on oatmeal, most every day, for a year. Most every day, because we ran out of food sometimes. I have an aversion to pears to this day stemming from that extraordinarily repetitive experience.

Feels like, looks like Micronesia/the Marshall Islands

     I had lunch at the hospital in Majuro with friends and remembered my experience there when it was brand new back in 1987. I was playing basketball on Kili, came down on my ankle the wrong way from my 6 inch vertical leap and it hurt like the devil. They first tried a banana stalk poultice, which is kind of the panacea of all outer island cures and that didn’t work. Then they tried bitbit, which is a type of Marshallese healing massage. That didn’t work either and I’m certain they heard my scream on the other end of the island. I thought my ankle was broken, got on the next plane and somehow got myself to the hospital. There were two young women there who argued about who was going to take care of me and ended up playing janke (rock, paper, scissors) and the loser had to do the intake. She was surprised and more than a little embarrassed when I asked her in Marshallese why the loser had to take care of me, shouldn’t that have been the winner? They x-rayed my ankle, said it wasn’t broken/fractured, it was just a very bad sprain and I needed crutches. But they didn’t have any at the brand new hospital and they suggested I go to Mon Robert and buy a broom and break off the bottom. So that’s what I did and used it as a cane/crutch.
     And there I was, 30+ years later, strolling down memory lane, passing by the court house where I got my marriage license and ambling along the aisles of the same store I bought a broom in to use as a crutch/cane. It was there, probably in the broom aisle, that I had an epiphany. I’m a planner and I don’t have much of a plan for what happens after January 4th, when I leave Kwajalein. I’ve planned for all these years to get to retirement, but not so much for what to do when I get there. I thought I had a lot of life’s answers squared away, but the scale suddenly feels weighted with more questions than answers. I’ve got until about April 2020 loosely penciled in, but that’s about it. For me, the next chapter in life starts off with: I don't know how this story is going to end, but it’s been a hell of an interesting ride so far.

     

Countdown. Again. And side hustles.

     Here we go again. Another countdown, another go at retirement. I think it’s the 4th time I’ve tried to retire. There have been so many failures, it's hard to count. This work gig started out as a 4 month commitment, which turned into 7 months. I’m going to try to make it stick because it would be embarrassing to be a 5 time loser. For one, I’m almost 60. I’m tired of pulling these all day-ers. When you are nearly 60, afternoon delight is the indescribable feeling of putting in ear plugs, pulling the sleep mask on and taking a sweet, sweet nap.
     I’ve thought a lot about how you occupy your time in retirement - reading, writing, continuous learning, exercise, impulsive off season travel and maybe a side hustle or two. Because I'll be retired (again) I guess they'll just be hustles. One of my very favorite side hustles was growing papayas when we lived in Saipan. I had a good six years of abject failure. I did have one year of a few freak seedless, incredibly tasty papayas, but it was total crap shoot. Mostly I'd end up with wild papayas or useless males. Throw in the tropical storms and typhoons, which occurred with frightening regularity, and trying to grow anything there is a labor of love. Then I went to a papaya seminar at the University of Guam (yes, such a thing existed) and learned all of the papaya secrets, and no, I'm not going to tell you. But the next season was, as they say in Saipan farming jargon, jackpot. All of the papayas were either female or hermaphrodite (translation: they all had fruit). The fruit was uniform in size, texture and taste.

     There's my daughter with some of the papayas, and yes, they were all like that. I was a hero. The old farmers in my village came to me and asked me for papaya growing advice. I gave them the same bullshit answers they used to give me when I asked them for their secrets: pick out the blackest seeds. Put them in water, then only plant the ones that sink. Or plant only the ones that float. Only take seeds from the bottom half of the papaya. And they ended up with wild papayas or males.
     The family we lived with? They got all the secrets. And suddenly, just like the prized betel nut that grew in As-teo, it looked like it was a very special place for papayas as well. Just the sweet water and soil, I guess.  They gave me a chunk of land to grow more papayas on, which I cleared with a machete. I was a few years younger then. I could do whatever I wanted to do with the papayas, the caveat was when it was fiesta time, I would donate whatever I had on hand so they could make papaya coco (pickled papaya) for fiesta. And what I wanted to do was eat a lot of papaya and sell some to the high end hotels - that was my side hustle.
     And that papaya growing at one fiesta led to one of my more embarrassing moments in Saipan. Every village had a fiesta to honor their patron Saint. We lived close to the Shrine of Santa Lourdes, and you guessed it, she was our Saint. If you are part of a village in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, you participate in the fiesta. You contribute food, money and/or your time preparing the food. I had graduated from the grunt work of peeling garlic and cutting onion to contributing papaya and cooking food - this year, I was helping fry chicken with some guy I didn't know named Ramon who was dressed in ratty Army fatigues. We made small talk for a while, then got around to asking what we did on island, I told him I was a teacher at San Vicente Elementary School, he said he worked at the Court. I asked him what he did there and he said he was a judge. And then it hit me. Ahhhhhh. I had been frying chicken with Supreme Court Justice Ramon Villagomez. Doh.
     Retirement? Like Bill Clinton said, I have more yesterdays than tomorrow’s, so starting January 4, 2020, I’ll be trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, this time with a bit more urgency.

I've made it

     As a blogger, I've made it. I finally got paid. I have a few different blogs, the most popular is/was the one on Afghanistan. I haven't updated that in years, because I haven't been there in years, but it still gets hits. The piss bottle http://bagrami.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-piss-bottle.html still is quite popular.
     I've written about medical tourism and living in Kuwait and life after work (mostly this blog) and finally thought I'd insert ads that if people click on them, I'd have a few coins thrown my way. That's really the way Google and Facebook work - they know who you are, what you do, what you're interested in and when you click on something I write, they offer you ads that you're interested in. If you click on them, they get money, and I do too. I know this, because I just got paid.
     Per Google's policies, I'm not allowed to say click on the ads. So I don't. But because I'm so flush in cash, after getting paid, I don't have to.
     After making it, I still plan to write. About my most recent trip(s) to SE Asia.

About my most recent work gig on Kwajalein, about life after working. Which again, is going to happen in January. But what am I going to do with my pay out from blogging? I'm going to squander it. All $100.03 of it. 

Corruption

     I think you’ll find corruption no matter where you go in the world, but in some countries, it’s more endemic (or tolerated) than others. In Vietnam, for example, tourists on motorcycles are routinely shaken down (or at least I was) for not having a Vietnamese license. Okay, it’s illegal to ride a motorcycle without a Vietnamese license so you know there’s a risk. But motorcycles are freely rented out to anyone with a drivers license, passport and enough cash and it seems to be only the Western tourists who are pulled over. There is a ‘fine’ to be paid then and there. The police were obviously not impressed with my Marshallese drivers license, which does have a motorcycle endorsement, nor would they accept my international drivers license.

Unimpressive, evidently.

There’s really no point in arguing, you’re in their country, so you’re wrong. At least that’s the way they see it. I just pull out my fake wallet which has my Marshallese drivers license, an expired credit card and 20,000 dong in it and tell them it’s all I have. That’s about 86 cents for those not interested in doing the math. You know you’re going to get fleeced, just smile and enjoy the feeling of fleecing the fleecer. Then I ride down the road, stop, put another 20,000 dong bill in my fake wallet and carefully hide my real wallet.
     Corruption. In 2005, I was sent to a 12 week course in Hawaii at the Asian Pacific Center for Security Studies. There were 105 high ranking military and diplomats from Asia and the Pacific studying regional and global security issues and ways to enhance security cooperation. It was an interesting group and some of topics covered were transnational crime, transparency in government, illegal drug production/distribution patterns around the world, human trafficking and reducing corruption, to name but a few. Small groups were given complicated problems to solve and then present the solution to the entire class; ours was to find the best way to curtail opium production in Afghanistan.
     Right after the lectures, there were always two individuals who raced to ask the first question, one was Colonel Chris Weiker, Canadian Forces and the other would blow into the microphone to ensure it was on before announcing, “I am Trachean, from Bhutan.” There were a few more who enjoyed hearing the sound of their own voices, but those two ALWAYS had to ask a question. As an introvert or what I feel is a more accurate description - a JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) see link here:  https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/31/the-two-tribes-of-working-life I was not one of the questioners after lectures. Ever.
     Our team was composed of bright, well educated, articulate and talented individuals who were completely capable of presenting our solution. Even though I obviously wasn’t one of the chatty Cathy’s of the course, when time came to discuss who would present our findings, there was no discussion. Every index finger pointed at me, the sole native speaker of the group. As a JOMO’s JOMO, I don’t people particularly well. But I have a switch somewhere inside me that I can turn on and rock a presentation. And I did. When I was finished, a Colonel in the Cambodian Police who I knew fairly well stood up and said, “Your presentation was well thought out, excellent and thorough. But you forgot one thing.” “Yes sir, what is that?” I replied. He said, “Look at my uniform. Look how many pockets it has. Your budget forgot to put something in my pockets.” His uniform did indeed have six pockets. Now that’s some chutzpah. Here was someone attending a US funded course espousing good governance and anti corruption and he was suggesting our plan would fail because we didn’t include bribes as part of our budget.
     He was right of course, but I think it still took some courage to say that in front of everyone. I clumsily explained that the US Government does not participate in nor condone bribery as part of their foreign policy outreach. But without the help and support of local officials on the ground, any plan to curtail opium production would be doomed. There’s really only one way to get the help and support of local officials in Afghanistan, and that’s by putting something in their pocket(s).
     I’m in Cambodia now, and that Colonel in the Cambodian police I met in Hawaii is now a Lt. General. That’s three stars for those counting. We had dinner last night and then went to one of his families homes.

Sok Sareth, 16 years later. He still looks the same. 

We had a good chuckle over him calling me out all those years ago because I forgot to include bribes in our budget. We caught up on other colleagues, where they were, what they were doing and talked about the price of real estate in Cambodia and what it takes to buy real estate here. Cambodian citizenship is what it takes. Taiwanese pay $500,000, Chinese $250,000 and then there is a lower cost (and longer process) cut rate price of $70,000 for that passport. We talked about new visa entry requirements for the US under the Trump administration (spoiler alert - it’s a lengthier and more complicated process) and he said that from his perspective, China was ascending in world affairs and America was on the decline. Great discussions and an interesting night.
     I have a few more days left in Phnom Penh. While I don’t go into sketchy establishments where you are practically asking for trouble,  trouble can still track you down in Phnom Penh. I’ll be on a bicycle the next few days in this crazy city traffic, so it’s  reassuring to know I have his card and phone number should anything happen. ‘Cause there’s still just a wee touch of corruption in Cambodia.
   
     

My identity

     I am who I am, there’s never been any ambiguity about that, until now. When I was a kid in school I was Al or Alan. As I got older, I worked construction every summer and Christmas on Kwajalein in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I came home from college. The workforce was primarily from Hawaii, so I was haole boy. My boss, Chige Sakamoto seemed to revel in barking out, “Haole boy! Come!” I was the only haole around, everyone knew, it was just who I was. Haole boy.  When I lived on Kili Island in the Marshall Islands, I was ri belle to the kids, or to the youngest, simply belle (ri belle is Marshallese for white person or foreigner). The entire year I was there, every time kids who weren’t in school saw me, the would yell out, “Belle, belle, belle, belle, belle!” My retort was, “Majol, majol, majol, majol, majol!” (Marshallese, Marshallese, Marshallese, Marshallese, Marshallese!) But it was okay because that’s who I was/am. A ri belle. In Saipan? I was just another American. I remember sitting around with our Chamorro family one Friday evening and they were complaining about Americans on island and how they didn’t respect the local culture. I raised my eyebrows and looked around the group and someone suddenly said, “Oh, but not you guys. You’re okay.” Whew. That’s who I was/am. Another American. I’ve been in Vietnam for a few weeks and have been to some out of the way places where they’re not used to foreigners of any type showing up. The gasps are audible, people whisper and point and then shyly come up and either try to practice their English or ask for a photo with the foreign devil. I have no idea what they call me, but that’s what I am in Vietnam, just another foreign devil. A nice foreign devil, but still.
     But not here in Nha Trang. It’s a weird demographic. There are primarily local Vietnamese, Vietnamese tourists, Chinese and Russians. Russians. Lots and lots of Russians. From 1978 to 2002, Cam Ranh bay, a deep water port about 50 kilometers south of Nha Trang was leased to the USSR Navy. Russian military families migrated up to Nha Trang, which has a lovely, curving beach and started to create a Russian community there. There are now direct charter flights that disgorge even more Russians directly to Nha Trang.

Store for???

     Back to me. Al, Alan, Haole boy, ri belle, belle, just another American, Mr. Dragon (see last blog), foreign devil and now...I’m apparently Russian. I’m clearly not Vietnamese or Chinese. I stay in $25 - 30/night hotels, so I’m not taken for a ragged Western backpacker, clearly, I must be Russian.

Pretty sure they’re Russian

When I go into a store to buy something, they say, Spasibo (thank you). Da. Nyet. But this is what I say to let them know I’m not Russian: Я не голосовал за Трампа. Translation: I didn’t vote for Trump. Reclaiming my identity! Reclaiming my identity!

Mr. Dragon

     I was first exposed to dragon fruit in Phnom Penh, around 1998. I have a pretty good knowledge of tropical fruits, but dragon fruit was brand new to me. I was teaching 4th grade in Saipan way back then and a former teacher from Kwajalein, who was teaching at an international school in Cambodia got in contact with me through a mutual friend. He was interested in coming to Saipan and wanted to know if I’d answer a few questions about working and living on Saipan. We had an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session via e-mail and I gave him what I perceived to be the good, bad and ugly about living and teaching on Saipan. After a few more work/life discussions over e-mail, he told me he was taking his middle school class to Angkor Wat for a field trip and asked if I wanted to tag along.

1. I repeat. He was taking his class to Angkor Wat for a field trip. Wow.
2. I asked my wife for permission (really, I begged. Angkor Wat was on my bucket list) and she generously gave me a kitchen pass.

     Before my wife could change her mind, I quickly made reservations and within a few days I was on my way to Phnom Penh. The visa on entry process, including a payment of $20 in US cash, was interesting. Process is not exactly the right word. It resembled a rugby scrum, with everyone waving their $20 in a semi circle, trying to push their way forward to get the visa raj to take your money and stamp your passport. I eventually made my way to the front of the line, got my visa and floundered out into the hot, sticky air of Phnom Penh.  David’s wife Nam had kindly offered to pick me up at the airport.  I hopped on the back of Nam’s moto (the ubiquitous 110cc motorcycle in SE Asia), and silently thanked myself for being a light traveler - I had a small duffel bag, she put that between her legs and I held on for dear life as she beeped her horn and weaved in and out of the chaotic Cambodian traffic.  She took me to their apartment, where I met their daughter, Tu. David came in a bit later from school and Nam quickly prepared an unbelievable meal. The food was excellent, but every aspect of the multi course meal stood out because of her exquisite presentation. Things that seem special to me (cutting chile or green onion, putting it in ice water so it would curl like a flower, for example) were normal for her. Every plate had the exact amount of garnishing in the same place, and perhaps because I’m not a gourmand, it was quite impressive. At the end of the meal, she plopped down what looked to me like big chunks of Gouda cheese on a plate for dessert. Red skin on the outside, yellow on the inside. I experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance, after such an incredible meal, the dessert was these huge hunks of cheese? But no, that was my introduction to dragon fruit. The fruit itself didn’t overwhelm, it wasn’t an OMG moment like the first time I had mangosteen or rambutan, but it certainly piqued my interest. There were seeds in the yellow flesh and I asked about them, how the plant grew. Both Nam and Tu told me that dragon fruit did not grow from seeds, like a banana, you had to take the shoots and transplant them. When they said that, I started taking those tiny black seeds out and putting them on the side. Challenge accepted.
     The trip to Angkor Wat with those rascally middle schoolers is another story, but Angkor Wat did not disappoint.
     I’m in Vietnam right now and it seems like every fruit - mango, longan, lychee, rambutan, the queen of fruits, mangosteen and the king, durian - are all in season. There is also no shortage of dragon fruit. I took an 8 hour train trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang a few days ago and saw where all of the dragon fruit in the world is grown. At least that’s what it looked like to me as hours and hours passed with nothing but dragon fruit plantations on either side of the train. Seeing all of the dragon fruit brought back fond memories of David, Nam and Tu and the humorous dragon fruit discussions we had. Nam and Tu were adamant that you couldn’t grow it from seed, I said I’m going to try; they had a good time teasing me saying that it wasn’t possible.

    More dragon fruit than you can shake a stick at. 

     I had no idea about how it was grown, didn’t even know what type of plant it was. But I’m a curious fellow (and a little stubborn as well) and gave it a shot. When I got back to Saipan, I was able to start and grow some dragon fruit plants. They even flowered, but they never fruited. When David, Nam and Tu finally came to Saipan, we had them over and I casually led Nam and Tu over to my dragon fruit plants and said, “Oh, what are these? Where could they have come from? Are these dragon fruit plants?” They were stunned. We had made an agreement in Phnom Penh. If I was able to grow dragon fruit from seed, then they would have to call me something other than Alan. And for the rest of the time they were on Saipan, Nam and Tu honored the deal and  called me by just one of the many names I go by..Mr. Dragon. 

Weird year

     This has been one long, weird year, and then some. It started with us living in Arlington, VA, where I’d cycle into DC every day weather permitting (I’m very much of a fair weather cyclist). That’s right, January, 2017. I’d circle around the Capitol, think about Trump and Obama walking down the steps and usually stop on the other side and gaze up to where Trump would give his inaugural address. It was all just...weird. Very few people, myself included, gave him any chance of winning the Presidency. It seemed as if every week, there would be a collective, “He can’t survive that gaff,” and somehow, he did.

Obama and Trump. They walked down those stairs together. Still can't believe it.

     Then I got a call asking if I’d like to phase in a contract in Qatar and Kuwait and could I leave tomorrow? I said sure, packed up and got on a plane. That’s kind of the way my life is these days. And, it was conveniently right before the inauguration, so I managed to avoid that whole scene. I was in Qatar for most of the time, staying in the same hotel Gwyne and I stayed in when we were getting our residency done for Kuwait. Staying in the same hotel, eating at the same Dairy Queen (where I took Gwyne for her 50th birthday), and then going to Kuwait, seeing the same cast of characters I used to work with, going to my favorite Sultan Center in Fahaheel, eating the same Chicken Briyani. It just felt weird.

Some restaurant in Qatar - I'm a big Biriyani fan

     That wrapped up and I went to Indonesia for a month. I started out in Java and went to a few places I hadn’t been before, Jakarta, Semarang and Jepara, but that adventure lasted a week, then I went right back to one of my happy places, Ubud, Bali. It seems as if the Eat, Pray, Love folks have discovered Ubud, but so much of Bali and Ubud remained the same.  I’ve been to Ubud so many times, starting in 1991 when it was a sleepy town, walking up and down Monkey Forest Road and Jalan Hanoman, the experience just felt surreal, searching out the familiar and noticing the changes. The very first place we stayed in, the Frog Pond Inn (at the princely price of $1.50/night, mosquitoes were included at no additional charge) was still in operation. Many other places had closed down, but it was that odd sense of I've been here before, mostly because, well I had. So many times before.

Drying rice in Ubud, before it's husked. Nice to see some things haven't changed.

     Then I started working part time for a company about two miles from where we lived in Texas. When I was there, I went to the same Kroger we used to shop at and drove streets we used to drive on and stopped by the house we used to live in. Someone else lives there now. Weird.
     How much weirder could the year get? Well, we moved to Huntsville, Alabama. I'd like to know who wrote that script because I'd certainly like to have a little chit chat with the writer and suggest an edit.  I spent a week at Space Camp when I was the teacher of the year from the CNMI. One of the things that is visible from many parts of Huntsville is the great big rocket, the Saturn V replica at the Space Center. Now I lived there. I'd cycle around on my bike, as a resident this time, and look at that rocket, remembering my time here in 1997 and just shake my head, wondering how I got there. Really. How did this happen?

Huntsville? Yep.

     I went back to Texas and got ready to go phase in another contract. And that contract was Kwajalein. Yeah. That government contract. Spent a night in Honolulu, headed to Kwajalein. Saw folks at the airport in Honolulu, people I knew getting off the plane and then checked into a BQ and had a tour of Kwajalein given by the new PM. I was traveling with three DynCorp employees who had never been to Kwajalein before, so the PM, who had been on Kwajalein for a grand total of 7 days gave us a tour. "You can see the island of Ebeye from here. Ebeye is where the most of the Marshallese live." Granted, I'd been gone for seven years, but c'mon. Wanna talk weird? Having someone give ME a tour of Kwajalein. I spent three surreal weeks on Kwajalein, walking or cycling around, bumping into people wherever I went. How about giving a bunch of briefings to Marshallese employees in Marshallese? Been there and done that, just didn't expect to be there and do that again, yet somehow, there I was.

I had a day off when I was there. Coral Sands.

     2018. Time to settle down for a while, right? Not exactly. I gave Huntsville a fair 4 months and right after the Kwajalein work gig, I got on another plane. I'm in Dubai right now, visiting old haunts, eating at familiar restaurants, taking long walks and enjoying the cosmopolitan nature of the Middle East. I used to come to Dubai all the time when I lived in Kuwait and when I worked in Afghanistan - it was and is a comfortable place for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find 34 dirhams on my Metro card, more than enough to whisk me pretty much wherever I want/need to go in Dubai. 

Spice Souk, DXB.

     But why Dubai? I'm here because I'm headed back to Afghanistan for another as yet undetermined amount of time, partly out of boredom (did I mention I live in Huntsville, AL?) and partly due to my boundless greed, but also because the work there is really interesting. After I get my visa, I'll fly out again to what may be a sense of normalcy for a while. Who knows?